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 ***Important***            ***Important***            ***Important*** Notice to all World Fantasy Travel Customers

We of World Fantasy Travel Company Ltd. strongly recommend that in your travels you remain inconspicuous. To this end, we have prepared a list of words commonly used in your present situation. Please employ this vernacular whenever possible in all further speech.

***Important***            ***Important***            ***Important***

Jump to:
                General Ship Terms
                Expressions from back then
                Food
General Ship Terms:
B   C   D   F   H   J   L   M   O   P   Q   R   S   T   W  


abaft     Toward the stern.
 
aft     At, in, toward, or close to the stern of a vessel..
 
afterguard     The seamen who are stationed on the poop and quarter deck of the vessel, to attend and work the after sails etc.
 
afternoon watch     The watch from noon until 4 p.m. The nautical day begins at noon.
 
amidships     Midway between the bow and the stern.
 
analemma     A graduated scale in the shape of a figure eight, indicating the sun's declination and the equation of time for every day of the year and usually found on sundials and globes.
 
anemometer     An instrument for measuring wind force and velocity. See also here for more information and an illustration.
 
astrolabe     A medieval instrument, now replaced by the sextant that was once used to determine the altitude of the sun or other celestial bodies. See also here for more information. (Click "Begin Exploring and then, on the "astrolabe" picture in the next window.)
 
athwartship     Across a ship from side to side.
 
backstays     Ropes forming part of the standing rigging. They stretch from mastheads and tend aft from the masts. They serve to support the masts against forward pull and are named according to the mast they support.
 
barque     A sailing ship with from three to five masts, all of them square-rigged except the after mast, which is fore-and-aft rigged.
 
binnacle     A wooden case or box, which contained compasses, log-glasses, watch-glasses and lights to show the compass at night. There were always two binnacles on the deck of a ship of war, one being designed for the man who steered, the other for the person who superintended the steerage, whose office was called conning.
 
Blue Peter     A blue signal flag with white square in the center, hoisted on the foremast to indicate a vessel is ready to sail. It was a recall to the crew "that they repair on board" and for shoresiders to conclude any business they had with the vessel.
 
capstan     An apparatus used for hoisting weights, consisting of a vertical spool-shaped cylinder that is rotated manually or by machine and around which a cable is wound.
 
chronometer     An exceptionally precise timepiece. See also here for more information. (Click "Begin Exploring and then, on the "chronometer" picture in the next window.)
 
clew lines     Lines running from the corner of the sail, known as the clew, to the yardarm and down to the deck.
 
dogwatch     A way the sailors changed places. Every 4 bells they switched places.
 
first watch     The four-hour watch between 8 p.m. and midnight.
 
forecastle    
  1. The section of the upper deck of a ship located at the bow forward of the foremast.
  2. A superstructure at the bow of a merchant ship where the crew is housed.
 
forenoon watch     A name given to the watch from 8 a.m. to noon.
 
hawse hole    
  1. The situation of the cables when a vessel is moored with two anchors, one on the starboard, the other on the port bow.
  2. The distance ahead to which the cables usually extend; as, the ship has a clear or open hawse, or a foul hawse; to anchor in our hawse, or athwart hawse.
  3. That part of a vessel's bow in which are the hawse holes for the cables.
 
jibs     A triangular sail set forward of a foremast.
 
jolly-boat     A boat of medium size belonging to a ship.
 
larboard     The left, or port, side of any craft when facing the bow. Perhaps derived from the 13th century English word laddebord, or loading side; some suggest it goes all the way back to the Norse word hlada bord of the same meaning
 
loblolly boy     A surgeon's assistant aboard ship. Loblolly, another form of burgoo, was the name for the gruel or porridge usually served to the surgeon's patient in the sickbay.
 
luff (to)    To bring a vessel's head nearer to the wind, so the sails start to spill wind, by putting the helm down or increasing the sail area toward the stern. Also the order--as in "luff round!" or "luff up!"--to throw the ship's head into the wind in order to tack. middle watch The watch from midnight until 4 a.m., which follows the first watch.
 
mizzenmast     The third mast from the bow in a vessel having three or more masts. It helps sustain the sails, yards, rigging, etc.

ŗA mizzenmast was added to the HMS Beagle improve her manoeuvrability thereby changing her from a brig to a barque.˛
 
morning watch     The watch from 4 a.m. to 8 a.m.
oakum     A caulking material used in waterproofing the seams between strakes of planking. It is a mass of strong, pliable tarred rope fibers obtained from scrap rope, which swell when wet. The fibers are soaked in pine tar and loosely bundled together.
octant     An instrument based on the principle of the sextant but employing only a 45° angle, used as an aid in navigation. See also here for more information. (Click "Begin Exploring and then, on the "octant" picture in the next window.)
 
poop deck     The highest and aftermost deck of a ship.
 
purser     The person appointed by the master of a ship or vessel, whose duty it is to take care of the ship's books, in which everything on board is inserted, as well the names of mariners as the articles of merchandise shipped.
 
quadrant     An early instrument for measuring altitude of celestial bodies, consisting of a 90° graduated arc with a movable radius for measuring angles. See also here for more information. (Click "Begin Exploring and then, on the "quadrant" picture in the next window.)
 
ratline     One of the small lines traversing the shrouds and forming rope ladders used by seamen for going aloft.
 
sextant     A navigational instrument containing a graduated 60-degree arc, used for measuring the altitudes of celestial bodies to determine latitude and longitude.
 
sheet home     To strain or haul on a sheet until the foot of a sail is as straight and as taut as possible.
 
shroud     One of a set of strong ropes extending on each side of a masthead to the sides of a ship to support a mast laterally. Shrouds take their name from the spars they support.
 
stern     The rear part of a ship.
 
strike the bell     Expression used at sea to denote the divisions of the daily time from their being marked by bells which are struck every half hour, the term "bell" being employed aboard ship as "o'clock" is ashore.
 
theodolite     An optical instrument consisting of a small mounted telescope rotatable in horizontal and vertical planes, used to measure angles in surveying, meteorology, and navigation. (See here for more infor+mation.
 
weather deck     An uncovered deck exposed to the weather. The uppermost continuous deck, exclusive of forecastle, bridge and poop.
Expressions from back then:
B   C   E   F   G   H   P   S   Y  
 
anti-fogmatic     raw rum or whiskey
boodle     a crowd of people
candlelighting     dusk (as in the time when one had to start lighting candles in order to see)
 
cap the climax     outdoes everything
 
cold as a wagon tire     dead
 
exfluncticate     to utterly destroy
 
fix onešs flint     to solve or settle a matter (As in, Captain FitzRoy needs to fix his flint over that minivan in the storeroom)
 
grist     used like ŗsome˛ or ŗa lot of˛
 
hang up onešs fiddle     to give up
 
Hearty, sir, never better.     This was Jemmy Buttonšs response when people asked him how he was doing. He said it so often, people began to associate the expression with him.
 
honey-fuggle     to cheat
hornswoggle     to cheat
 
huckleberry above a persimmon     better than (As in ŗthe HMS Beaglešs a huckleberry above a persimmon over your olš ship.)
 
to plank, plank down, plank up     to pay in cash
 
sockdollager     a powerful punch
 
yammerschoonering     "Give me" or meaningless babble.

From The Voyage of The Beagle by Charles Darwin:
"It was as easy to please as it was difficult to satisfy these savages. Young and old, men and children, never ceased repeating the word yammerschooner which means "give me." After pointing to almost every object, one after the other, even to the buttons on our coats, and saying their favourite word in as many intonations as possible, they would then use it in a neuter sense, and vacantly repeat "yammerschooner." After yammerschoonering for any article very eagerly, they would by a simple artifice point to their young women or little children, as much as to say, "If you will not give it me, surely you will to such as these."
Food:
H   S   W  
 
burgoo     Various definitions:
  1. Oatmeal porridge,
  2. hard tack and molasses. It was not considered a fancy dish.
hard tack     Hard bread, much dried, consisting of flour, water or milk, salt, which does not deteriorate when stored for long periods and therefore is suitable for use on board ship for up to a year after it was baked. Also called sea biscuit. Click here for a recipe.
salt pork    So named because it is salt-cured, this is a layer of fat (usually with some streaks of lean) that is cut from the pig's belly and sides. It is very salty and should be blanched to extract excess salt before being used. It's similar to bacon but much fattier and unsmoked.
sea pie    A seaman's dish composed of fish or meat and vegetables in layers between crusts, the number of which determine whether it is a "double-decker" or a "three-decker." Click here for a recipe.
soft tack     Seaman's term for leavened bread as distinguished from hard tack or biscuit.    
ship biscuit     Hard bread, much dried, consisting of flour, water or milk, salt, which does not deteriorate when stored for long periods and therefore is suitable for use on board ship for up to a year after it was baked. Also called hard tack.
whack    A sailor's serving of a meal.